Today's culinary scene is rife with inaccessible restaurants — this one's too expensive, that one's booked for a solid year — but at least those challenges are predictable. If you want to try dining at Ajiyoshi, a Japanese mom-and-pop café in Tsukuba, you better have a couple days available. The laid-back owner only shows up when he feels like it.

The café doesn't seem to have lost its customer base, though. Perhaps this is due to the owner's Twitter updates — they announce when he's closing up shop — that are always polite and frequently hilarious.